Content warning: sexual violence
From T-ball to the big leagues, there is a universal fan etiquette surrounding player injuries. The crowd goes quiet. They crane their necks and mutter that they hope everything’s alright. As the athlete walks or is carried off the field, the bleachers unite in polite applause. It’s a gesture of support for the player, and a reminder to us all that some things are more important than the game.
Apparently the crowd at Huntington Bank Field this weekend didn’t get the memo. When Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson went down with an Achilles injury just before halftime during Cleveland’s matchup with the Cincinnati Bengals, the home fans were aroar: booing their own player as he lay in pain, cheering as he was carted off the field, reveling in the knowledge that his season was over.
It was hardly sportsmanlike conduct. The team noticed, and players went on the record to say the crowd’s reaction was “bullshit” and that fans should be “ashamed.”
Yet as gauche as it may be to jeer a man in pain, this pearl-clutching about propriety rings hollow. The boos raining down on Sunday were not just about the Browns losing to their cross-state rivals or their 1-6 record being tied for the worst in the NFL. They were a reaction to a man who has done far worse thing than cheering boorishly, and a franchise that has frittered away fans’ goodwill by insisting that Watson is both a good player and a good person when he is plainly neither.
Let’s start with the obvious: Watson was having a horrible season. His 35 percent positive-play percentage this year is the worst of any quarterback with at least 200 plays by a wide margin (he is the only one below 40 percent). Ditto his -0.23 expected points added per play and his 21.7 quarterback rating. In simpler metrics, his 5.3 yards per attempt and 8.4 yards per completion also rank last. This is par for the course for Watson, who has ranked as one of the worst QBs in the league ever since he joined the Browns. (When he’s been on the field, that is — by the end of this season he will have missed 63 percent of the games Cleveland has played since he signed his $230 million deal.) At least he leads the league in one category this year: he has taken 33 sacks in just seven games. No one else in the NFL has more than 21.
But Watson’s poor performance is not why he faces such animosity. As anyone who follows football surely knows, Watson has been credibly accused of inappropriate conduct ranging from sexual harassment to assault by at least 30 women, 26 of whom are known to have filed lawsuits to that effect. Sadly there is nothing unique about sports teams tolerating such despicable behavior. But given his prominence as the face of the franchise, the sheer volume of accusations, and the public nature of the drawn-out investigation and litigation that preceded his suspension in 2022 — the NFL’s ultimate 11-game punishment implied that each allegation was worth just one and a half quarters of play time — the situation achieved salience even among fans who prefer to ignore what happens off the field. I don’t know a single Browns fan who was glad to have such a man under center, no matter how talented he seemed.
Watson’s act is wearing thin even among those who do not care about his crimes, a mindset I fundamentally disagree with but that describes at least a significant minority of Cleveland fans. He has spent the entirety of his Browns tenure denying the allegations and portraying himself as the victim. “I do not have a problem,” he declared at his introductory press conference. A year later he dismissed the disciplinary process he went through as a “distraction,” whined that the media had “overshadowed” his story, and spun the criticisms he has weathered as a way to find out “who’s going to be there and support me.” Just last month he proclaimed he was still “no doubt” one of the best quarterbacks in the game.
It’s common for public figures to selfishly reframe their image-rehabilitation efforts in terms of redemption. Watson’s attitude makes clear that he wants something even more galling: vindication. To hear him tell it, it is the haters’ fault that people think he is a sex pest or bad at football. Maybe his arm would be more accurate if it weren’t impeded by the massive unearned chip he’s always wearing on his shoulder. It’s hard to muster sympathy for someone like that.
Fans’ frustrations are not just about Watson. Since Paul DePodesta took the reins as the franchise’s Chief Strategy Officer in 2016, the Browns have gone 52-85-1, a record that is sure to decline even further by the end of this season. They have finished in the top half of the AFC North division only once in nine years. DePodesta’s vaunted all-in rebuild, including bottoming out with a humiliating 0-16 season in 2017, has failed. True to his reputation, he has built out the consensus-best analytics department in the NFL. But if their R&D group has too little internal cachet to convince leadership of the obvious fact that Watson is holding the roster back, what does it matter?
General Manager Andrew Berry was nominally responsible for acquiring Watson. Assuming it was really up to him (as opposed to DePodesta or the Haslams, the Browns’ infamously meddlesome owners), that means it was Berry who chose to punt the 2022 season, which should have been this roster’s best chance to win a Super Bowl, by cashing in all his chips for a quarterback facing a lengthy suspension. It was Berry who squandered so much future salary-cap space with his massive commitment to Watson, and who hindered Cleveland’s ability to supplement the aging skill-position core with young talent by trading away three years’ worth of first-round draft picks. And it was Berry who presented himself as having led the effort to vet Watson’s character. The team’s conclusion, that Watson was “humble, sincere, and candid,” will go down as one of the wrongest scouting reports in the history of professional sports.
Whoever makes the roster decisions, Berry or otherwise, also bears responsibility for the glaring hole in the middle of the current depth chart. The Browns had a great backup quarterback last year: Joe Flacco, who led the Browns to an improbable playoff berth after Watson got hurt. Despite the importance of having a Plan B QB behind the injury-prone Watson and Flacco expressing interest in returning to Cleveland, the Browns chose not to bring back the fan and clubhouse favorite. The common narrative, which sounds more like a sitcom character’s attempt to weasel out of a lie than a way to run a sports team but is nonetheless the most-convincing explantation I’ve heard, is that the front office was worried about fans calling for Flacco to take over if Watson struggled, and they preferred downgrading the roster to reflecting on what that said about their $230 million quarterback.
In Flacco’s place the Browns signed Jameis Winston, who has also been accused of multiple instances of sexual assault, including an incident for which the NFL suspended him in 2018. The Browns certainly have a type.
The failures extend to the field level, too. When Head Coach Kevin Stefanski arrived in Cleveland in 2020, he was hailed as a playcalling genius. He lived up to the hype in his first season with the Browns, leading them to their first playoff win in my living memory, and further burnished his bona fides by riding a thought-washed-up Flacco to the postseason a year ago. But of the 10 quarterbacks who have suited up for the Browns in Stefanski’s five years at the helm, Flacco is the only one whom you could look back on as having succeeded in his coach’s system. Between Watson and Baker Mayfield, Stefanski has twice failed to build a sustainable scheme around a quarterback with ostensible franchise-cornerstone talent. At this point his inability to get the most out of his players is a clear pattern — as is his fostering a discordant locker room, which based on the team’s sideline body language has become an issue for the third time in the last four seasons.
Despite mounting contrary evidence over the last several weeks, Stefanski has dutifully insisted that he has faith in Watson putting the Browns in position to win. (If he ever gets tired of football, his penchant for shamelessly parroting a party line no one believes would make him an excellent fit for hosting White House press briefings about Gaza.) This week he had some choice words for how the crowd reacted to Watson’s injury. “I don’t think it’s ever okay to cheer when someone’s injured,” he said. Fair enough, though I’m struck by the fact that Stefanski offered a harsher rebuke of his paying customers’ peaceful expressions of frustration than I’ve ever heard him express about Watson’s assaults.
Myles Garrett, one of the most popular players on the team, also scolded the fans for booing, calling Watson a “model citizen” who “does pretty much everything right.” What do those descriptions tell you about the Browns’ organizational culture?
Meanwhile, three days earlier, the Haslams announced that they are moving the team from their longtime home in downtown Cleveland to a new facility in suburban Brook Park. They are seeking $1.2 billion in state and local funds for their state-of-the-art stadium complex. Perhaps the Browns can see this weekend as the start of the public comment period.
There was a dark symmetry to Watson suffering a gruesome injury the day Nick Chubb returned from his own. Chubb blew out his knee last September, which many feared would end his career. Barely a year later, the indefatigable running back was back on the field. He even scored a touchdown in his first game of the year.
I think about the Herculean effort it took for Chubb to get back in playing shape, the passion he described in a poignant Players Tribune essay last week, the courage he showed in putting his body and livelihood on the line to return this brutal sport — and I am infuriated by the contrast with his employers’ vain stubbornness, moral depravity, and steadfast commitment to mediocrity. Everyone knows what it’s like to realize that a project you poured so much time and energy into didn’t actually matter. Now imagine how Chubb must feel.
Jeering an injured player is uncouth. If I had been at the game, I’d like to think that I wouldn’t have joined the chorus. But the gesture was a reflection of the disrespect this organization has shown to their city and their fans, and far less harmful than the sins this team happily condones — they’re lucky people still care enough to boo. Maybe someday the Browns will care more about winning football games than doubling down on their own mistakes. Then we’ll finally have something real to cheer for.